Shadow Boxing

The Family Research Council gives us a perfect example of either totally innocent wordplay or extremely subtle (and well-crafted) bigotry. In the course of criticizing companies for acknowledging the existence of gays, FRC chief Tony Perkins writes the following:

It baffles me how some major corporations, whose success depends on the support of American families, show contempt for the values of such families....Kraft Foods has paid $25,000 to sponsor the "Gay Games" in Chicago this summer--an event known as much for after-hours sexual activity as for on-field athletic competition. And now, FRC has discovered yet another example of corporate devotion to the homosexual agenda.

A full-page ad for Tylenol PM pain reliever appears in the July 19 issue of the pro-homosexual magazine The Advocate. It shows a photo of two bare-chested men lying beside each other in bed. Under one is the caption, "His backache is keeping him up." Under the other is the caption, "His boyfriend's backache is keeping him up." Tylenol is produced by Johnson & Johnson--the same company that makes the famous baby powder.

Let's dispense with the obvious first. The gay games are "an event known as much for after-hours sexual activity as for on-field athletic competition"? This is distinct from the regular Olympics...how? And the Tylenol ad--I presume the FRC would prefer that the caption read "his casual AIDS-infected sex partner's backache Herpes outbreak is keeping him up," but I at least am happy to see companies encouraging stable relationships over random hookups.

But here's what gets me--what's with the gratuitous reference to J&J as the company that makes "the famous baby powder"?

On surface, there's nothing wrong. J&J does make baby powder, and it is famous for it. On the other hand--what purpose does it serve? It's not to give reference to an otherwise obscure company--most people have heard of Tylenol. It has nothing to do with the advertisement in question. Could it be that the FRC wants to juxtaposition "gay sex" and "babies", playing on many heterosexuals subconscious fear of molestation?

Many people will claim I'm jumping at shadows, and perhaps they're right. Such a statement might, after all, be totally innocent. And there is the problem with well-crafted hate speech--it can disguise itself so well within the currents of mainstream (and acceptable) discourse that it often is nearly impossible to spot except by two types of people--the haters and the hated. Truly virulent homophobes see that message and think that J&J is putting their kids at risk--however illogical that may be. Other decent people may not even recognize the message, but still register it's meaning, even if only on a subconscious level (which can be just as powerful, if not more so, than overt signals). Homosexuals see the message too, and wonder--innocent, or are they being accused (yet again!) of being closeted sexual predators?

Simply put, there is no way to find out. If some foolish person (like me) writes a post saying that the statement smacks of homophobia, most people with discount it as silly. Immediately, I will be labeled as a loony liberal going wild again, playing the PC card and trying to suppress totally innocuous speech. Assuming the FRC is innocent, they'll say so and complain of political correctness run amok. If they aren't, they have plausible deniability, so they'll still say they're innocent and complain about political correctness run amok. Either way, the result is the same.

It is the ambiguity of speech on the margins that makes bigoted speech such a conundrum. Everybody recognizes and condemns the overt cases, and nobody even thinks about the clearly irrelevant cases. It's the situations in between which are nearly impossible to deal with--and while in this particular case I think the subtlety is a bit far even for the FRC, groups like that certainly know how to turn that ambiguity to their advantage.